I am not a resolute person. It’s just a fact that I have accepted. This is the time of year when everyone is talking up their New Year’s Resolutions. I’ll let you in on a little secret: when these little tidbits of positive change and promise are thrust at me by the well-meaning masses, I’m laughing on the inside.

Keeping it on the inside is pretty much all I can do. My personal history has made me resolve not to make resolutions.

I’ve had the years that made me think to myself, “I shall change my world with the promise of the New Year.”

Approximately three days (or less) into January, I am not only breaking resolutions, but I am having a contest with myself to see how furiously fast I can do so. There was the year that I was going to exercise every single day. Under the Christmas tree Santa Claus had left me a plethora of goodies to help me stick with my intentions. There were weights to tone my arms and an abdominal something-or-other to give me that six pack we all desire. I was going to hop myself into frenzies with my shiny new jump rope and fight the flab with my exercise ball. Look out world, I thought, this was no joke. By January 5th I was sore and cranky about the whole exercise business. The exercise ball was looking sad and half deflated and had found its way into the bin of dog toys; the children had tied each other up repeatedly with my jump rope; I had stubbed my toe on the weights and banished them to a spot under the couch, not to be heard from again; and the only six pack headed in my direction was of Diet Coke.

Another year, in keeping with the health-conscious theme, I decided I would eat well. Forget all the processed gobbled-gook so full of preservatives and evil. I was going to fill the cupboards and fridge with good for you treasures. Away with the Oreos and hello to the raw fruits and vegetables. Goodbye high fat and sodium, I thought, I shall replace you with wholesome goodness that will nourish our minds and bodies. When I was about a week into this, “this” being quite possibly the worst idea I’d ever hatched, I was at my wit’s end. The turkey meatloaf needed salt. The steamed broccoli was screaming out for cheese. The sweet potatoes were obviously longing to be sliced, Idaho potatoes fried to a crisp. And that fruit sorbet in the freezer couldn’t hold a candle to my friends, Ben and Jerry. I found myself resenting the good for me food.

“What are you looking at, cucumber? I know you want to go swimming in some bleu cheese, no sense trying to kid a kidder.”

I can eat the healthy things, I discovered, but I prefer them to wear disguises in the form of breading, cheese and condiments. Oh, I will eat an apple or some raw veggies, but I like to have a Snickers bar at the ready as well.

I made a mental promise one year that I would be more organized. I purchased a whiteboard for the kitchen with multi colored markers and magnets in hopes of organizing my family’s universe. I filled in January with appointments and made notes about bills due and birthdays. There were emergency phone numbers and little asterisks to remind me of this and that and the other thing; Oh, but it was impressive in all its color coded glory. Everyone’s life was right there on that whiteboard. If you didn’t know where you should be it was all right there in the kitchen in green, blue and red. In August of that year everyone still knew where they should have been for all 31 days of the previous January.